dunce

• POS: Noun

OXFORD DICTIONARY

dunce, n. a person slow at learning; a dullard.

Idiom

dunce's cap a paper cone formerly put on the head of a dunce at school as a mark of disgrace.

Etymology

John Duns Scotus, scholastic theologian d. 1308, whose followers were ridiculed by 16th-c. humanists and reformers as enemies of learning

THESAURUS

dunce

Boeotian, block, blockhead, bonehead, boob, booby, bufflehead, cabbagehead, chowderhead, chucklehead, chump, clod, clodpate, clodpoll, cluck, dabbler, dilettante, dimwit, dodo, dolt, dolthead, donkey, dope, drip, duffer, dullard, dullhead, dumb, dumb cluck, dumbbell, dummy, fool, gowk, greenhorn, greeny, ignoramus, illiterate, illiterati, jobbernowl, know-nothing, lackwit, lamebrain, lightweight, looby, loon, lowbrow, middlebrow, niais, nincompoop, ninny, ninnyhammer, nitwit, no scholar, noddy, puddinghead, put, stupid, tenderfoot, thickwit, unintelligentsia, witling

ROGET THESAURUS

dunce

Ignoramus

N ignoramus, dunce, wooden spoon, no scholar, (imbecility) 499 (folly) 501 moron, imbecile, idiot, fool, jerk, nincompoop, asshole, dilettante, sciolist, smatterer, dabbler, half scholar, charlatan, wiseacre, greenhorn, amateur, novice, tyro, numskull, lubber, fool, pedant, bookless, shallow, ignorant, a wit with dunces and a dunce with wits.

Fool

N fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling, dizzard, donkey, ass, ninny, ninnyhammer, chowderhead, chucklehead, dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby, hoddy-doddy, noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy, owl, goose, goosecap, imbecile, gaby, radoteur, nincompoop, badaud, zany, trifler, babbler, pretty fellow, natural, niais, child, baby, infant, innocent, milksop, sop, oaf, lout, loon, lown, dullard, doodle, calf, colt, buzzard, block, put, stick, stock, numps, tony, bull head, dunderhead, addlehead, blockhead, dullhead, loggerhead, jolthead, jolterhead, beetlehead, beetlebrain, grosshead, muttonhead, noodlehead, giddyhead, numbskull, thickskull, lackbrain, shallowbrain, dimwit, halfwit, lackwit, dunderpate, lunkhead sawney, gowk, clod, clod-hopper, clod-poll, clot-poll, clot-pate, bull calf, gawk, Gothamite, lummox, rube, men of Boeotia, wise men of Gotham, un sot a triple etage, sot, jobbernowl, changeling, mooncalf, gobemouche, dotard, driveler, old fogey, old woman, crock, crone, grandmother, cotquean, henhussy, incompetent (insanity), greenhorn, dunce, lubber, madman, one who will not set the Thames on fire, one who did not invent gunpowder, qui n'a pas invente' la poudre, no conjuror, fortuna favet fatuis, les fous font les festinas et les sages les mangen, nomina stultorum parietibus harrent, stultorum plena sunt omnia.